We parked out car on Broadway and withing minutes were hugging our friend. In had been years since we had talked in person to Antonio. It was so nice seeing his smiling face and listening to him laugh.
It was so nice seeing Antonio’s smiling face and listening to him laugh.
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the upcoming performance of former Tacoma Poet Laureate Antonio Edwards, Jr. The three performance event Speak No Evil was Friday evening with three more performances at Tacoma’s Glass Museum the next day(October 28, 2017). The introduction of my article referred to the serialization of Homer’s The Iliad in the Seattle Times. I praised the efforts of the Times, but hated their sacrifice: Gone are musical words and phrasing . . . the rhythms, the changing tempos, the alliteration, the patterns and portmanteauxing, or linguistic blend of words into a single phrase like “fleetinthewindAchiles”. All that the Times removed was present in Antonio’s performance last night. The power of the spoken word pulled us into his presentation. The magic mixture of Antonio’s salsa description, the beat, and his steps as he danced across the stage not only entertained but took us away to Puerto Rico. Our unheated room took on warmth and a soft glow.
The presentation used slides, video, and background music as a backdrop for Antonio’s comments, expressions and gestures. I think I detected a riff/lyric from “Can’t Rely on You” written by English recording artist Paloma Faith and American singer and producer Pharrell Williams.
The presentation used slides, video, and background music as a backdrop for Antonio’s comments, expressions and gestures
Two slides showed New York City 600 schools. “As late as the 1970’s, violent and disruptive students were removed from New York City’s regular public schools and placed in so-called “600 schools,” where teachers were paid an extra $600 a year for hazardous duty. The schools became dumping grounds for troubled children and were wisely phased out.” – www.nytimes.com/1992/09/04/opinion/guard-against-dumping-ground-schools.html. One of the slides was Antonio’s elementary school. When he first saw the description of his school he became incensed and wanted to ask his mother why she would have enrolled him there.
One story from the presentation I had seen five or six years ago and really enjoyed. It was about his second grade teacher, whom he fell in love with. On her first day of school she wrote her name on the blackboard, “Miss Watson.” When Antonio wanted to write on the blackboard as well, she drew in a box where he could write whatever he wanted to for his contribution. That story alone was worth the price of admission, or in this case donation.
Afterwards, Antonio talked about moving to the West coast. In New York neighborhood everyone knew Antonio was Puerto Rican, but here he had to answer questions like “Do you think you are more black or Puerto Rican?” As if you can slice your soul into minute pieces. Antonio sees himself as having seven distinct blood lines that unite to form the poet he is.
His opus “Hilltopia” remains a powerful warning of the effect of gentrification on the Hilltop residents. But most of his stories of the schools and his mother came after the presentation was over. Three of us chatted with Antonio until people began arriving for his second show.
As we left, we told people just starting up the stairs to the third floor of the Knights of Pythias Lodge #7 that it was worth the effort. The lodge, built in 1906 felt like it could have been a classroom setting for a Dead End Kids movie from the forties, or Gabe Kaplin’s “Welcome Back, Kotter” TV sitcom from the 70s. Next time I see Antonio I’ll ask, if with its brass plates and push button lights, and milk glass hanging globes it felt like home to him . . . or merely a 600 school.
Antonio Edwards Jr says
These are the voices of the city.
The not so preferred voices that we hear.
You know the ones that we fear
That buzz around our ears like annoying flies.
Whose cries often go Ignored.
Their song carry no melody through the air, only stench.
We have come so dangerously close to accepting homelessness as a form plight to be swept out of sight forcing our humanity the inability to know what is wrong from what is right.
One such voice, full of grunts, mumbles and moans of disapproval screams to society’s deaf ear
Mr. Heany, a man who carried the weight of world on his six foot three inch frame, causing him to walk hunched over and downcast.
His hair probably once blond like Norway now dark and matted
A dwelling place for lice, leaves and discarded things.
Tobacco stained lips bordered by a mucus filled mustache and bearded face
Never wiped totally dry by his sleeves.
His gate, a distinctive shuffle commanded my peripheral to take notice yards away.
And as he approached me, the only thing I wanted to give to him was a wide berth
You see, by now Mr. Heany had lost control of his bodily functions in junction with his mental illness
This of course allowed me to justify my repulsed reaction toward him-
but would gain him favor with local merchants
Who he knew would feed him In exchange for his absence and their guilt.
It’s been said;If you want the hear God laugh, tell Him your plans
So I did; I told Him I would serve the less fortunate and make a difference
So enter, Mr Heany, barefoot!
Holding on to what little dignity he had left with one hand and keeping his tattered trousers from falling with the other.
His footprints made of feces the only matter he left behind
Once somebody’s son, brother or father, now no longer… a bother
Antonio Edwards Jr.2011